The Trauma of Divorce

Trauma occurs in many ways. According to the American Psychological Association, Trauma is defined as:  any disturbing experience that results in significant fear, helplessness, dissociation, confusion, or other disruptive feelings intense enough to have a long-lasting negative effect on a person’s attitudes, behavior, and other aspects of functioning. I have spent a significant amount of time working in the field of psychology, and in that, I have had a few traumas in my life that I have had to work through.

Divorce is one of the most eye-opening types of trauma. It comes to us in many ways, and in that, the trauma of divorce is that it is truly separating a life that we have created; and asking for a person to create a complete do over, all the while continuing to move ahead in life as if nothing happened.
It has been said that the only trauma worse than a divorce is the death of a child. When talking with people who have been through a divorce, they will share with you that it is in many ways a death. It is the death of the hopes and dreams one had when sharing vows at the altar. It is the death of an identity, for which you called yourself a spouse and it is the death of what was – a whole life put together that will now be separated into a business decision.

Working through a trauma takes significant time. Typically, the world you live in comes crashing down around you, and you spend the time wondering what you did wrong. The reality is, when it comes to divorce, the standard question of “what did I do wrong” harbors few if any honest answers. When a divorce is brought to the table, the litany of reasons brought to you are rarely honest, instead they are the reasons someone else is utilizing to help themselves justify the choices they are making.
Most of the conversations I have had with people who have either gone through divorce or who are going through divorce is that they were not even aware that the other party was unhappy. This may seem like a convenient truth to justify the hurt that is upon the person, yet the reality for many is quite simple, they did not see it coming. Much like a car accident, when you do not see it coming, it arrives in a panic and the ensuing trauma begins.

There are many books on shelves sharing in ways to maintain a marriage, sustain a relationship and or how to work on yourself to become the best version of you. The irony of divorce is, even the most successful people find themselves in a divorce and then must deal with the fallout of the trauma. In respect to the people getting a divorce, both parties will find themselves at the point of a traumatic mental state, even the person who has made the initial choice for divorce. They will arrive at trauma later, typically because their vision for what is the end of the relationship still needs to be mourned, and this cannot be done while you are still a couple.

The conversation of how to deal with the trauma of divorce has many different paths for success, and none of these are easy or instant. The trauma that a divorce causes takes time to recover from. It involves time for your inner thoughts to heal, for your heart of hearts to come to terms with what has happened and for your whole being to recover into being the person you want to become. Think of this in the same way a caterpillar moves into a cocoon to become a butterfly morphing from being to a creature of beauty.

In the field of psychology, there is a model called the Kublar Ross stages of grief.  This model is openly discussed when talking of a loved one dying and the steps one goes through during the grief and coping process. Well, a divorce is no different. The mind has no ability to truly separate the types of grief and so it goes through all of them in much the same way. In sharing that, just as a person who loses a loved one learns, it’s a trauma and there is no real time frame for healing. Instead, what occurs is that we either handle it properly and work through the stages. Accepting the stages allows us to accept that at times situations will remind of us of the past life we had; or we bury the pain, we hide from it and allow it to be our baggage that will follow us through life, without realizing that its there.

Divorce is a big deal and it needs to be treated as such. Regardless of how the divorce came to be, my suggestion to you is to take a good look at the person you are today, how did you get here and why? What caused this to occur. There is a reality that is marriage, and in that reality, far too many people choose divorce when there are other options. When considering your divorce, the reasons it occurred – consider first the Why! You got married. Consider the variables that gave way to getting married. One of those I would have you consider – are you the same person today that was there at the altar saying “I do”. What has changed? Trauma does not just go away, and every time you hear the word divorce, someone says they are going through a divorce or even watching a show and Divorce is being discussed – you are reliving your trauma. You need to work on you, you need to understand your Why! And you need to understand your “Who am I” so that you can move forward. These are not just simple answers you come up with in a day, they are the foundation for you to begin working through your own emotional process for your divorce.

Honor yourself in your divorce – metaphorically speaking you have the right to rebuild yourself, and rediscover the YOU, that you want to be. Make the choice to work on you, work through the trauma and come out of your Divorce mentally, emotionally,  and physically happy. Remember – to “Focus on watering your own grass, so that the grass elsewhere does not look that much brighter”. The story of choice rarely ends with you getting to water both grasses, instead what usually happens is both lawns die.